Chris Froome, the three-times Tour de France winner, knew that Friday's pre-season meeting with the media was going to be dominated by one topic.

The agenda was set by the controversy over Sir Bradley Wiggins’s medical exemptions and the package that was couriered to Wiggins in 2011 which prompted a parliamentary hearing. Team Sky knew it too, sending not just their head of communications but a highly-paid PR consultant to man-mark their star rider.

Froome made it clear that whatever reputational damage Team Sky had sustained in recent months, indeed whatever difficulties Team Sky principal Sir Dave Brailsford had suffered, his own ‘values’ had not changed.

Chris Froome's own values have not changed, despite the reputational damage to Team Sky

Froome has his own reputation to consider and is keen to limit the collateral damage

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Yet the ringing endorsement Brailsford might have wanted from his star rider during the most serious crisis in the relatively short history of the professional British cycling team was not exactly forthcoming.

Froome has his own reputation to think about here, and it was clear he wanted to limit the collateral damage — not just to himself but to other riders in the current team — as much as he could.

There were times in Monaco when Froome looked uncomfortable answering questions on a mess that has not been of his making. He did his best to navigate his way through it. Indeed, he was his normal charming, articulate self. But treading a line between answering honestly without making matters worse for his employers was not always easy.

Froome was his usual charming self but was diplomatic about team leader Dave Brailsford

He repeated his stance that questions remain unanswered around Wiggins and his use of a powerful corticosteroid before his 2012 Tour de France victory and two other races. And he stopped short of standing unequivocally behind his boss. Three or four times he was asked if Brailsford retained the credibility to lead the team, and three or four times his answers were diplomatic at best.

‘Dave has put his hand up and said he has made mistakes,’ said Froome of Brailsford’s role from the moment Sportsmail questioned Sky, British Cycling and Wiggins about the package delivered for Wiggins at the end of the 2011 Criterium du Dauphine.

‘Of course it has been a tough time. It has been a tough time for Dave. But I think if you look at what Dave has actually done, the team he has put together, I think we’ve got a great group of guys with values in the right place and I think we’re all focused on everything that is coming up.’

Asked, however, if he was satisfied with the explanation that Brailsford gave to MPs last month — that Sky flew a courier from the UK with a decongestant the team doctor could have bought in France for a few euros — he said only he didn’t ‘know any different’.

He said that the recent questions had led to a difficult time for Team Sky's Brailsford

‘We’ve all been told what was in the package,’ he said, stressing the need to wait for the UK Anti-Doping inquiry to report.

The conversation returned to whether Brailsford remains the right man to lead the team.

‘That’s not really for me to say,’ said Froome. ‘But I’d like to think that when I get up there and say, “Believe in what I’m doing”, when I stood on the podium in Paris and said, “These are yellow jerseys that are going to stand the test of time”, that I actually meant what I said and I’m asking people to believe in that.’

That was the essence of Froome’s message, that whatever decisions have been made by Wiggins and members of the Team Sky hierarchy, who all deny any wrongdoing, his own achievements should not be doubted.

Froome said he remained committed to not ruining the reputation of the yellow jersey

‘My values haven’t changed,’ he insisted. ‘I’ve always been very focused in terms of my stance on doping, showing people that it is possible to win the Tour de France clean, to win multiple Tours de France clean. And that’s what I’m going to continue to do.’

In France this summer the situation could, of course, intensify. Only two years ago his performances were heavily scrutinised by the French media during a Tour when the team came under attack from the fans, with one spectator showering Froome in urine.

He was asked how Brailsford might cope in the spotlight. ‘You’d have to ask him that,’ he said. ‘But last year the reception in France was great. Honestly, I don’t think it will be a problem. And I think I’ve always been open and transparent with the public and I don’t see why that should change.’

Froome, in Monaco, was insistent he still believed in his values surrounding clean riding

Wiggins’s Tour win in 2012 was something he would like to separate himself from. ‘A lot of people have asked questions around that and we have yet to get a lot of those answers,’ he said. ‘But I don’t see why that should flow into the 2017 Tour and the group there.’

That said, he declined the opportunity to launch a direct attack on a former colleague he certainly clashed with in the past.

Asked if he was angered by Wiggins’s use of triamcinolone, Froome replied: ‘I’m not even going to waste energy thinking about that. It’s not helpful to visit certain events of five years ago.’

He was keen to separate himself from the Bradley Wiggins' Tour de France win in 2012